I'm all for talking about guns and classic cars and beer and hockey and Batman and venison jerky, but if your office conversation sounds like it belongs in a bad 50s sitcom, it may be time to update the repertoire.

It's fun telling clueless, young, unmarried, male supervisors who want to know exactly why you're leaving early: "It's cramps." "What kind of cramps?" " Menstrual cramps." Watch the young men flee in terror from the woman old enough to be their mother.

Either something is burning, or this migraine just took an interesting new turn.

Does it smell like toast?

It's fun telling clueless, young, unmarried, male supervisors who want to know exactly why you're leaving early: "It's cramps." "What kind of cramps?" " Menstrual cramps." Watch the young men flee in terror from the woman old enough to be their mother.

There's a great bit in No Touch Monkey! and Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late:

...and is forced to explain tampons, which she admits, "might have looked like white cotton bullets lined up in their box," to soldiers in Kashmir — "They're for ladies. Bleeding ladies."

Does it smell like toast?

It, uh... smells like salty coffee?

Someone left an empty coffee pot on the burner?

It, uh... smells like salty coffee?

Hmm... Probably a massive tumor, then.

Probably a massive tumor, then.

And she was so young.

The police just called my cell phone to say that someone had called 911 from that number, and to ask if I needed any emergency response.

He and I jointly decided, after a few seconds, that someone must have written the number down wrong.